Neglected… that’s how my little blog has been feeling. No “stories” since August and the last new recipe was in November! Most readers will know that is because of my new gig as restaurant reviewer for The Hamilton Spectator.

I’m determined to get back to blogging and this entry is prompted by a special occasion. February 7 – Kitchen Bliss is 4 years old!

In four years Kitchen Bliss has shared 162 recipes and 51 stories. A year ago many of you had great comments on my Dinner Party reflections. Two years ago it was all about the secrets to happiness with reference to social media being dominated by the hashtag #f*ck2016. (Really!? We thought 2016 was a bad year?)

This is a terrible time to be a political junkie. Humour may be the best antidote.

This post will also have to serve as a (belated) Happy New Year greeting. The year flew by – they all fly by. 2019 will mark seven years since I retired – not hard to remember that number - it has also been seven years since my Dad died. He’d be 92. He always liked “a good feed” and it would have been fun if he could have been my dining date for a restaurant review!

Resto reviewer sounds like a dream job – the fun of eating out and reconnecting with friends who offer to be dining partners. But, true to form, I have stepped up to the plate and proved that for each weekly review I can make the work expand to fill more time than one would imagine, or hope for.

I have to figure out where to go – aiming for some balance of resto type and location. Do some research on the resto and the chef or owner. Drive and dine. Do a post-dining interview, and then write. In the words of the Food Editor – “Just barf out the first draft and go from there.” So, that’s kind of what I do and I always end up with 1200-1400 words which must then be cut back to 800. All those lovely words falling to the floor… I’m learning to not become too attached to any of them. Then there’s photo editing and the paper trail to keep myself organized. It’s been a “full circle” life activity. I am back to earning 75 cents per hour – my wage when at age 15 I first began working as a “duster” in Sherwood Drugstore. (Do they even hire people to be dusters anymore??)

I have passed my probation period and have no idea how long this will last. I already know that once it’s over the best part will have been the people. It is startling and heartwarming, week after week, chatting with young entrepreneurs who love Hamilton and see it as a thriving, happening kind of place. So much of my life has focused on Burlington, Oakville, Toronto and New York. Now I am re-discovering my hometown at a time when there are exciting changes.

If you’ve read any of my reviews you’ll know that each week I hunt for the story behind the restaurant. I love stories, and story-telling. In The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit says “We tell ourselves stories in order to live… We think we tell stories but stories often tell us, tell us to love or to hate, to see or to be blind.” Telling stories about food - and those who passionately prepare it - is often about love and seeing things anew.

The unexpected resto gig has helped me keep on track with many of the so-called secrets to successful retirement. Stay busy, be a lifelong learner, give back, get social. A world that was shrinking has suddenly become bigger – eating out weekly, exploring new places and cuisines, sometimes re-connecting with people I’ve not seen in years, and forging new relationships with people of varying ages. Inter-generational experiences are, as promised, good for you. Researching for some reviews sends me down rabbit holes learning new things. And opportunities for giving back pop up. Just this week I was a judge for Hamilton’s 17th fundraising SoupFest. Fun – but after tasting 20 soups I don’t want to see soup for a wee bit.

I remain humble about this role as a reviewer, and hold no illusions that I personally am “an influencer”. But people do seem to read the GO section of the paper and more than one resto has been in touch with me saying that they have had their best day, or best month ever of sales. That’s got to be a good thing, right?

Let me take this opportunity to thank all who have sent along kind words about the reviews. That’s always appreciated – though never consider it a compulsory reading assignment!

One last bit of trivia. There is little room in this house for another kitchen toy, but… we just got one. No, not an Instant Pot – so far, resistance on that front has not been futile. With our annual sausage making day coming up, we got a vacuum sealer to prevent freezer burn on the frozen sausages - or any frozen thing - because… well… check out the cartoon. Say no more.

I always end a blog with a recipe. Here’s my recipe for the famous, iconic Hungarian confection – Zserbó Szelet. In all honesty, I suspect few of you will make it, but it will be waiting online for the day that someone else in the family wants to re-create this sweet that has been part of Xmas memories.

[PS. I have been sharing links to the resto reviews via my newsletters. Subscribe to them here. I promise one day soon I’ll add links to the Resto Page in my site – another section that has been neglected.]

The road of life. So many twists and turns. So many “what ifs” that affect the course of our stories.

A key moment in this story was in 2001 - December 13. An ominous number if you believe in omens. My Father was in need of important surgery. I assumed the role of “fixer”, helping to secure the date for surgery, offering assurances that all would be fine - joking “After all, it’s not brain surgery”. Except that it was.

There was nothing planned for the day before the surgery. It would have been a perfect opportunity to take my Dad for a drive and get him to navigate to the location of my Grandparents’ farm in Wellandport. He might have loved it, but I was ambivalent. Since a 1:1 outing with me would have been unusual, I feared that he’d take it as a sign. That he’d give me that look and say “This isn’t going to end well, is it?” He would have been right. To keep his spirits up, we behaved like it was any ordinary day. No father-daughter outing. An opportunity lost. From December 14, 2001 “Where was the farm?” became a mystery.

I don’t know if my paternal Grandfather was happy to be a farmer, or was even a good farmer. As a peasant in a Hungarian village, he was enticed to come to Canada in 1927.

Just now, immigration values and issues are in daily headlines, but at the turn of the last century Canada had thrown its doors wide open. Starting in the 1890s, an organized, aggressive and expansive immigration marketing campaign began, luring settlers to Western Canada with the promise of free land. To be exact, 160 acres – a “quarter section” (a quarter of a square mile). Pamphlets and posters appeared in dozens of languages, distributed all over Europe. I have seen these at Pier 21. Here are some examples.

Being gifted free land turned out to be no picnic. I recall my Father relating a story about a sod house. It seems they were not uncommon. Whether family myth or true, the story I heard was that 15 months after arriving, my Grandfather made his way to town to post a letter telling my Grandmother not to come. That very day, she was stepping off the train, with two wee kiddies in tow – the youngest being my father. [Read more about my Grandmother here.]

It seems that by the time they joined him a log house was in place. His Naturalization papers reflect the big picture. By 1933, six years after "going west young man", he owned two cattle and two horses. The horses undoubtedly had helped him break and crop 28 of his 160 acres. His assets included a log house valued at $350, a log barn ($50) and a log granary ($100).

The Spiritwood, Saskatchewan chapter of farming life included the deaths of two infants and (for reasons I will now never know) ended with a move to Wellandport, Ontario and a dairy farm. That chapter ended with the tragic death of my young uncle, and the move to Steeltown / Hamilton. All three boys born in Canada died. It might have grown to be a huge family, but today, ninety years after arriving, this branch of the family tree consists of only ten of us.

The farm. The house with a big wood-burning stove. The oil cloth table cover. Learning to recognize the unique ring pattern on the “party line” phone. The stairs leading to the second floor trap door. The chickens, the well, the windmill. Sandy, the dog. There were several Sandys – oddly each had a penchant for running into the road to meet their end. Sitting atop bales of hay as the hay wagon swayed and bounced through the fields – surely a feat that would not, today, get child safety approval. And the cows – always one named Diane. To this day I have high tolerance for barnyard fragrances.

I have many memories of time spent on the farm – but where, exactly, was it? Last year I emptied my parents’ house and found no hints.

Then the magic began. A clue. I got a hold of a few photos. A good friend showed these to her son who turned out to be an amazing “detective”. His job gave him easy access to aerial photos. He matched a curve in the road and my reference to a creek at the back of the property to aerial photos and maps and came up with a guess – one that proved to be correct!

This was the summer of the "Find the Farm" expedition. We discovered that every building on the property had been demolished. But "magic" was soon followed by fun! The highlight of the expedition was meeting the extended family on the neighbouring property who had farmed their land for several generations. They remembered my Grandparents, my Uncle, my family.

As we chatted, one of them disappeared and returned with a gift. Last year they went for a hike in the bush and found an old milk canister. They rescued it and gave it a lick of paint. It was stamped with my Grandfather’s name, and they insisted that it now belonged to me. One of those crazy spooky moments in life. Not to mention – how had that container survived over fifty years in the bush!?

The neighbours raised chickens, but were mostly dairy farmers. We reminisced about cows and I mentioned we had seen documentaries about modern dairy farms. They said theirs used modern technology! We got a tour!

Modern dairy farms use free stalls and voluntary milking systems (VMS). Their farm was not massive, used only one VMS and overall had a nice non-industrial vibe. Watch this short video of a similar farm. It explains how the cows are in open stalls, moving and eating freely – and let’s not overlook the “massage station” where they cozy up to a yellow massage brush. They choose when they will be milked and enter a robotic device that washes their teats, latches on and then milks them according to accumulated data re their normal production.

The neighbours reported that in my Grandfather's day trucks used to stop at every farm along the road to pick up milk. Not today. In Niagara, over the last 10 years, the number of milk producers has fallen from 61 to 44. [Source] But fear not! Today, milk production has actually increased. Some farmers increased their herd size and milking methods have improved. [Source}

I am a member of Food Bloggers of Canada (FBC). They do much to support bloggers in connecting with local food producers. Even if you have no family farm memories, the connections you can make with farmers – who tend to welcome your interest – actualizes and personalizes the work and the issues. Right now, dairy farmers have grave concerns about possible negative outcomes from the current Canada / USA trade talks. I have known folks who cross the border for cheap milk and butter. I never have and never will. The bounty our local farmers produce is worth every penny.

At the conclusion of family meals, we had to ask to be excused from the table - something like - “May I please be excused?” I find that to be so odd. It was a blue collar family with no aspirations to be anything more, so what was that table manner ritual all about? Was it simple decency or “hoity-toity”?

You could scold me for implying that good manners are linked to family income or social status (more on that later). In other respects, there was no “hoit” or “toit”. The dining table was in the kitchen, covered with a plastic table cloth. We used everyday dishes and cutlery, and always carefully placed the Tupperware salt and pepper shakers where elders could easily reach them. (There were, of course, nicer tablecloths, and crystal salt and pepper shakers for special occasions.)

Surely I must have got an A+ on this!

In other respects, I don’t recall a table manners “curriculum”, as in “elbows off the table, no slouching, no leaning back in your chair, don’t chew with your mouth open, don’t talk with your mouthful, don’t gang-plank your knife, wait for others before starting…” Oddly, since this list comes from memory and not research, someone must have been drumming that into me.

Perhaps the “drummers” were my home economics teachers? It was there, after all, that I learned how to set a table.

Again, where did this stuff come from? Fortunately, some culinary historians have tackled the history of table manners and claim that the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840), the emergence of a middle class, and the Victorian Era were responsible for the more widespread adoption of manners that might previously have been observed only in high society [Source].

There is also some claim that learning table manners was indeed "hoity-toity" and linked to optimizing performance ratings if one had opportunities for social climbing. Not so hard to believe. "Pygmalion" (the inspiration for '"My Fair Lady") may have been published back in 1913, but even today image consultants have plenty of clients. (One story line in China Rich Girlfriend focuses on a "disruptive" being coached to fit into Hong Kong high society!) As always, manners are part of the game, unless you have enough charm or other assets to get away with being a disruptor.

Another viewpoint was that the teaching of social graces had less to do with upward mobility and more to do with “democratic levelling”. Etiquette “books had always been popular in America: the country’s exotic mix of immigrants and newly rich were eager to fit in with the establishment. Men had to be taught not to blow their noses into their hands or to spit tobacco onto ladies’ backs. Arthur M. Schlesinger, who wrote 'Learning How to Behave: A Historical Study of American Etiquette Books' in 1946, said that etiquette books were part of 'the leveling-up process of democracy,' an attempt to resolve the conflict between the democratic ideal and the reality of class.” Crikey! A bit of a powder keg if we start to unpack that. [Source]

In my family, growing up, we did at least eat together. When I emptied my parents’ house last year there were three sets of TV tables, but during the time I lived in that house they were seldom used for family eating in front of the TV. My mother would never buy us TV Dinners. I am aware that, today, families may struggle to eat together. Kids may come and go from the table and even when remaining at the table, digital distractions often result in people “virtually leaving”.

I (lovingly and respectfully) ponder that being held hostage at the dinner table might also have been an exercise in old-fashioned parental power. A daily reminder of “who’s the boss”. You leave the table when I say so, you thank your mother (yes, always the mother) for dinner, and even if you momentarily escape to another room, you come quickly back to clear the table and do the dishes.

Social graces, respectful civility and a power play all in one.

Will have to quiz my own kids about their dinner time etiquette memories :-))

No etiquette book surfaced when I emptied my parents’ house, so where my parents sourced the “manners curriculum” remains a puzzle. Today you need only search on “table manners children” and you’ll get over 2 million results!

One source is from the Emily Post site. She wrote an etiquette book way back in 1922 and for decades after promoted the topic, speaking on radio programs and writing newspaper columns. The Emily Post Institute continues to this day offering their version of the top thirteen table manners for kiddies.

Wade through those internet search results and you can make that list of manners even longer! And/or read this brief, fascinating history of table manners.

A counter-point to asking to leave the table is asking to join the table. I recently enjoyed a podcast about journalist Jane Cunningham Croly who in 1868 was not permitted to attend a dinner honouring Charles Dickens. Why? Because women were not permitted to dine publicly unless they were in the company of a man. The setting was the famous NYC restaurant Delmonico’s - established in 1837 and still open today. They offered to let her into the room if she agreed to dine behind a curtain. She did not. What she did do was to found a women’s club and convinced Delmonico’s to host their meetings. [More on this story...]

This past April 2018, a luncheon of 150 women marked the 150th anniversary of that event. [Use your favourite tool to find and listen to that podcast - "A Taste of the Past", April 20, 2018; episode #297.]

Before closing, I invite you to use the Comments Tool below to share your past or present table manners stories!

Let’s end this blogpost with a recipe as usual. Every mannerly dinner should end with dessert and lately I have been craving cake with icing. Here are my three favourite options – which one shall I choose?

Treasure all with whom you still break bread. And maybe don't be in a rush to leave the table.

Decision Fatigue. I experienced that almost daily a year ago when emptying the house my parents bought 51 years ago.

Decision Fatigue is a real thing – with research showing that as a day filled with decisions progresses, the quality of decisions made later in the day decreases and/or we postpone the decision. This so-called “decision avoidance” may sometimes have a silver lining.

That’s what I’m thinking as I look at the box of postcards from their house. As I sorted through “stuff”, you can guess what the daily onslaught of decision options were – keep, donate, trash – we didn’t bother with “sell”. I bet my first impulse was to trash the postcards. A few were written by me, to my parents. Most were actually blank. Was it decision fatigue or good sense that I kept them? There were many days when unable to make a decision, I brought things home. Now, a year later I am slowly sorting through all the stuff that was added to the clutter in my house. It’s clear to me that trashing the postcards a year ago would have been a failure of curiosity, and I would have been robbed of all they made me ponder and explore.

I begin by wondering how many people remember when postcards were part of normal life?

There was a time when it was neither easy nor practical to call family or friends while traveling. “No news” would have been “good news”. In my mother’s case, receipt of the first postcard reduced her anxiety once I shared the license number of our rental car. She had this idea that if anything ever happened at home, she would call Interpol or some such authority and tell them to find us.

It was fun to receive a postcard. Sending a postcard was– in my memory – not so much fun. It could be like an albatross around your neck. The annoying burden of purchasing the cards, the stamps, carving out time to write them, finding a post box for mailing them. All this required that you remembered to bring addresses for all who “expected” a postcard – and there could be people in one’s life whose nose would be out of joint if they didn’t get a postcard. On shorter trips, the timing was critical. More than once we arrived home before the postcards did.

I recall sending them only to family and close friends. I was gobsmacked to see that my parents had received postcards from neighbours! In one case, neighbours from over 60 years ago! Either I never grasped the level of friendship they once had with these folks, or sending postcards to a neighbour was at one time “a thing”.

That some of the cards were blank did not surprise me. They may have been purchased and not used, but often people bought postcards as souvenirs. If you did not have a good camera, were a poor photographer, or could not get into a helicopter to get that perfect shot – on a sunny day – then postcards were a welcome addition to a souvenir / photo album.

There are two postcards I stare at every day. Each of my guys did a Europe trip when in high school. Each sent a postcard from Paris. We were camping in Paris when we decided to start a family, so I have always been touched by their postcards from that spot on the planet. I trust that you, dear reader, don’t think I am crazy to still have those postcards on my bulletin board some thirty years later. (I must have inherited the "postcard-keeping" gene.)

I also found one of the most memorable postcards I ever received. It was from Hugh R. Geldart, a work colleague, who sent a hand drawn postcard from Amsterdam. It still boggles my mind that I got to work with such creative people.

So, what did happen to postcards? Have we become lazy? Have we so much bought into the idea of “getting away from it all”, that we are self-centred on holidays? Are we socially isolated, not even knowing our neighbours, let alone sending them a postcard? Are postcards outdated in the age of Instagram and social media? If so, they have had a good run.

The world’s oldest postcard dates back to 1840 – so sayeth "deltiologists" – those who collect and study postcards. As it turns out, there is much to study and enjoy. Even when viewed only online, old postcards can capture many aspects of history – buildings, events, people. It's a history that included periods when the cards were used for sexual imagery, and sometimes even banned. I assume those postcards were never mailed, even though postage for postcards used to be cheaper than for regular cards and letters. “Naughty, bawdy” postcards even received government attention. In England, “in the early 1950s, the newly elected Conservative government were concerned at the apparent deterioration of morals in Britain and decided on a crackdown on these postcards.” [Source]

Today you are more likely to find postcards in tourist areas than your local corner store. Some are even “artisanal”, as in creative and not mass produced. In fact there is a subscription service that sends you artisanal postcards each month.

Ever wonder if the mail carrier reads the postcard? These days, I’d say doubtful, given the state of people’s handwriting. After years sitting at a keyboard, mine has become increasingly illegible. In any event, the digital “postcards” on Instagram are there for all the world to see, so "postcard" privacy may have always been a non-issue.

Interestingly, the “public” nature of postcards has been combined with the “private” in the Post Secret Art Project which since 2005 has weekly been publishing postcards on which anonymous senders reveal a secret. The project has been the focus of controversy with some edgy and bogus postings, along with occasional pathos.

Of more interest - a bit of internet searching reveals that there are, today, postcard clubs, archives, museums, collectives – even a podcast. Google ‘postcard projects’ and be prepared to be bowled over by the number of projects people have taken on – for example, sending 1000 postcards to people. There are even postcards from the future.

From time to time, I suppose we all still receive some form of postcard – the “save the date” types, some from politicians or real estate agents.

On the day when I was dotting i’s and crossing t’s on this post, the postcard below arrived in the mail! Spooky coincidence… but a real treat.

Postcard from Japan, where foxes have mythic status in folklore.

Maybe I’ll have to start my own postcard project. Meanwhile, I’ve come to the point where I share a recipe linked to my blogpost. Since I have a postcard from Amsterdam, how about if I share a cake that uses Dutch-processed cocoa! Click here for the recipe – Chocolate Quinoa Cake.